In a crowded field of Democrats vying for the presidency in 2020, one thing stands out. "Medicare-for-all" tops their campaign promises. On Sunday, the latest to announce, former Obama cabinet official Julian Castro, pledged to make Medicare-for-All a reality. But these candidates would rather walk on hot coals than tell you what "Medicare-for-all" costs: a whopping $32 trillion over 10 years. To raise that, all taxpayers, not just the rich, would have to hand a gut-wrenching share of their paycheck to Uncle Sam, based on Congressional Budget Office revenue tables. A single guy earning $82,500 a year, and currently paying...

When you receive your paycheck and look at the withholding for federal, state and sometimes city taxes, along with Social Security and Medicare, you probably don't think you're underpaying governments and want them to take more. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio believes that if you have played by what used to be called "the rules" and are making a decent living, taking care of yourself and your family and not relying on government, your taxes should be increased. In his State of the City address last week, de Blasio said, "...brothers and sisters, there's plenty of money in...

The short answer is “no.” China says it’s a socialist country, but a large part of its population struggles to afford medical services. Providing quality health care to a rapidly aging society is now a key challenge faced by the ruling Communist Party. How to provide health care for millions of people is a question that has vexed countries and governments around the world. It’s a modern notion, but nowadays we take for granted the idea that people have the right to access health services, regardless of their wealth or social standing. We also demand that the government play some...

The City Council on Thursday put its political clout behind a proposal in Albany to overhaul state health care by creating a “Medicare for all” program that would raise taxes by $139 billion a year. The single-payer plan would extend coverage to the roughly 1 million uninsured New Yorkers — including undocumented immigrants — and eliminate all co-pays and deductibles.

Hi FRiends, Happy Thanksgiving I hope you are having good weather and a relaxing time. I have a Question on Medicare Plans. My Wife and I are thinking about Advantage Plans to replace Traditional Medicare. We are 81/83 now and active. We currently have Traditional Medicare with a Gap Policy. The latest offerings from United Healthcare Advantage Plans seem to have taken care of out-of-network services with their Passport which create instantaneous in-network charges in most States that we visit. Emergency care is Covered in any State. Our current Doctors accept this Advantage Plan. Our Saving would be about $5000./year...

I'm pretty sure most of you will find things here to like and things here to truly hate. Border Security 1. Allow Army and Marine personnel to take leave of absences of up to 52 weeks duration, with military command approval, to join the Border Patrol and assist in its operations, with a $800/week Border Patrol salary and their military pay and benefit package. 2. Allow the Director of Homeland Security to specifically designate border security areas as shoot on sight/fire as appropriate zones. 3. Denounce [get out from under] the “Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees”....

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a top progressive Democrat in the House, on Tuesday called for hearings and a vote on "Medicare for all" legislation now that her party has taken back the House. “We are going to be pushing for it to get a hearing...to have this debate on the floor,” Jayapal said on an organizing call with the National Nurses United union on Tuesday night. Jayapal, who is co-chair of the Medicare for All caucus in the House, said it is not enough for Democrats to just say they are cosponsors of Medicare for All. Now that Democrats have...

**SNIP** Ocasio-Cortez was asked last week whether she thought Medicare for All was too expensive. Here’s what she said: “No, people often say, like, how are you going to pay for it and I find the question so puzzling because ‘How do you pay for something that’s more affordable? How do you pay for cheaper rent?’ You just pay for it. We’re paying more now.”

When the Left brings up ‘Medicare for all or Obamacare’, instead of pointing out that Government run healthcare would cost $32.3 TRILLION over the next 10 years, Republicans need to say ‘that would raise Federal taxes on every taxpayer 20%’. Period.

More than half of Americans receive more money in various types of government transfer payments (Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, Social Security) than they pay in federal taxes.1 According to a report released this year by the Congressional Budget Office, only the top two income quintiles in the United States pay more in taxes than they receive in government transfers. Not surprisingly, the lowest income quintiles receive far more in transfers than they pay in taxes:

... In anticipation of Mr. Sanders’ arrival this week in another Midwestern battleground state, Mark Sommerhauser of the Wisconsin State Journal noted on Thursday that “the policy views Sanders champions have become touchstones for many Democrats here and nationally.” Mr. Sommerhauser adds: Examples include Sanders’ “Medicare For All” health care plan and his call to raise the minimum wage to $15. Peter Rickman - a Milwaukee labor activist who led Sanders’ Wisconsin delegation to the 2016 Democratic National Convention - said Sanders “created the political space” to tout those issues, as well as free college tuition, within the Democratic mainstream....

It seems like just yesterday that Democrats were telling us that under Obamacare, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan." That was a nice sales pitch to voters -- even though it turned out to be a lie. Millions of Americans lost affordable insurance plans that were abolished under the Affordable Care Act. Still, people liked the idea that poor people would get health coverage and everyone else could retain the medical care they had. No more. When Bernie Sanders, and half the...

In a windowless conference room, Republican Senate candidate Martha McSally was asking executives at a small crane manufacturing company how the GOP tax cut has helped their business when one woman said: “I want to ask you a question about health care.” Marylea Evans recounted how, decades ago, her husband had been unable to get health insurance after developing cancer, forcing the couple to sell some of their Texas ranch to pay for his treatment. Now she was worried about Democratic ads saying McSally, currently a congresswoman, supported legislation removing the requirement that insurers cover people with pre-existing medical conditions....

The NBC/Marist Poll released figures for the statewide Senate and Governor's races in Nevada this week with Republican Adam Laxalt leading 46-45 in a 'head to head' contest with Democrat Steve Sisolak for Governor. But there are other candidates in the race like Libertarian Jared Lord and Independent Ryan Bundy. NBC/Marist did create a three way set-up and there Laxalt gets a wider lead over Sisolak 44 to 40 percent with Jared Lord at eight percent. But again no Ryan Bundy listed in the poll. They put other categories in with the three candidates with "None of these candidates" getting...

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in an op-ed accusing President Trump of lying about "Medicare for all," starts out with a whopper of his own. "It would guarantee everyone could get the healthcare they need without going into debt at far lower cost than the current dysfunctional system," Sanders writes in USA Today. The problem with his pie-in-the-sky statement, and the op-ed that follows, is that it fails to recognize the natural tradeoffs between access and cost in healthcare policy. In doing so, he also ignores the value of individual choice and the distinction between public and private that is central...

When President Trump declared in a USA Today op-ed that the Democrats' "Medicare for all" proposal would "outlaw" private health insurance, CNN's Jim Acosta indignantly tweeted that this was "false." But reading the text of the leading proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders makes clear that Trump's op-ed was correct. "It is right there in their proposed legislation: Democrats outlaw private health plans that offer the same benefits as the government plan." This is, in fact, 100 percent accurate. The plan would require, in four years time, for individuals to be enrolled in the new government plan at birth. At that...

Chuck Schumer declared this week that health care is the issue that will define the November elections, and the Senate Minority Leader may be right for the wrong reason. Democrats could end up paying a big political price for signing up en masse for Bernie Sanders’s government-run health-care agenda. Republicans are running ads slamming Democrats on single-payer health care, and President Trump framed the issue this week in a USA Today op-ed that said “Democrats would gut Medicare with their planned government takeover of American health care.” Democrats claim this is unfair because not every candidate has endorsed single payer,...